Entertainment

Star Trek Wikia Portal Is an Official Enterprise

Type “Star Trek” into Google, and you’ll get more than 71 million results for the iconic, 47-year-old sci-fi franchise. It boasts legions of fans and continues to generate fresh content, including the eagerly anticipated, big-budget sequel to the 2009 Star Trek movie reboot. But it’s never had an online portal sanctioned by the creator or his descendants — until now.

The Trek Initiative, as it's called, is for fans, Roddenberry said. “For years, I — we — have always admired the fans. They came together to save Star Trek through letter-writing campaign … and they’ve kept the Roddenberry family and Star Trek in the limelight.”

The free site, which launched Thursday, lets fans contribute content, as well as peruse an exclusive collection of scripts, call sheets and digital archives for both the original 1960s series (including pictures of Gene Roddenberry on set) and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Fans have access to a searchable database of Trek info and details on upcoming conventions and shows. Although the Trek Initiative has no direct relation to either Paramount or CBS, which each own parts of the Star Trek franchise, the site will include licensed content, including archival video and images from the new movie.

For his part, Roddenberry told Mashable that he hasn't seen the new Star Trek film. He does, however, support what director J.J. Abrams is doing with Star Trek, and considers it true to canon.

A Trek Playground and that Other Franchise

Roddenberry said he expects fans to create new Star Trek content from existing media. And while he may watermark some of the archival content, “I’m not going to try and control anything. The minute you try to control anything on the Internet, you’re in for a world of hurt.”

Both Roddenberry and Eric Moro, director of programming for entertainment at Wikia, said that with the Trek Initiative, they hope to unify all the disparate Star Trek fan communities, some of which already exist on the mostly user-generated Wikia (see Memory Alpha and Memory Beta), which accounts for millions of monthly page views.

Despite a reported 70 million monthly unique views and 300,000 communities, Wikia — founded in 2006 by Jimmy Wales as a for-profit Wiki — is not exactly a household online brand. Why didn’t Roddenberry Entertainment choose, say, Tumblr? Roddenberry said he contacted Wikia directly, and the service was interested and willing work with him to create “something good.”

Comparisons with another space-related mega-franchise are inevitable. Even Roddenberry admitted, “I’m frustrated we have not done more to encourage Star Trek fandom. Star Wars has done an incredible job of it.” Moro agreed that unlike Star Wars, where the now Disney-owned Lucasfilm worked hard to centralize the fan movement, Star Trek fandom is less robust.

It’s also notable that while Star Wars generates thousands of memes almost daily, there doesn’t appear to exist the same kind of visual shorthand in the Star Trek universe. Roddenberry thinks he knows why. “Star Wars is based more on fantasy, more creative, more fun, more entertainment; easier thing to play with. Star Trek is entertainment, but more intellectual,” he explained, adding that the show asks people to "think about something."

Gene Roddenberry was known to include thoughtful social commentary in Star Trek scripts. A famous episode from season three of the original series called “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” featured two warring races that each had half-black and half-white faces — the only difference between them was that their colors were reversed. The two races never resolved their differences, but Gene's dream of unity and social harmony continues to this day through his son.

Rod Roddenberry said he sees “the philanthropic side" of the Trek Initiative, but at the end of the day, he just wants Star Trek fans to visit the site “to feel like they’re a part of something.”

As for what Gene, who died in 1991, would have thought about the way today’s society communicates, the younger Roddenberry said he would have loved it. “He was definitely very open-minded and progressive. I’m certain he would have embraced tech.”

Are you ready to boldly go to this new Trek Wikia? How do you express your Star Trek fandom online? Let us know in the comments.

Mashable
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